Senior Director of Engineering, Zapier
Applied AI
$373.2-559.8k
Plus offers equity and bonus. EMEA: €240.5K – €360.7K • Offers Equity • Offers Bonus. Canada: CA$373.2K – CA$559.8K • Offers Equity • Offers Bonus
Workflow automation service
Be an early applicant
Workflow automation service
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$373.2-559.8k
Plus offers equity and bonus. EMEA: €240.5K – €360.7K • Offers Equity • Offers Bonus. Canada: CA$373.2K – CA$559.8K • Offers Equity • Offers Bonus
1001+ employees
Company mission
Zapier's mission is to Make Automation Work for Everyone!
Role
Who you are
- You’re a hands-on technical leader who thrives at the intersection of AI innovation and real-world product impact
- You’re a hands-on technical leader who thrives at the intersection of AI innovation and real-world product impact. You combine a deep understanding of AI and ML systems with the ability to apply them pragmatically to ship customer-facing products that solve meaningful problems
- You’re passionate about applied AI engineering. You stay at the forefront of AI development and experimentation, and your peers look to you for insight, vision, and guidance on how to best leverage AI for customers and in day-to-day execution
- You're driven to ship user-facing ML and LLM-powered products. You’ve had hands-on experience building and shipping user-facing LLM features, training and tuning models, and integrating them into end-to-end products. Beyond AI, you’re a trusted technical architect who makes pragmatic tradeoffs to deliver quickly and with impact
- You think strategically and act pragmatically. You can see where AI is heading and use that vision to guide near-term architecture, tradeoffs, and execution. You’re comfortable with ambiguity and can chart a path forward even when the technology is evolving
- You’re customer-obsessed. You deeply understand customer needs and are passionate about delivering high-quality solutions to our customers
- You have a passion for building products that delight both internal and external customers, making their jobs easier and more productive. You thrive on working directly with customers and support and customer success teams towards the common outcome
- You can develop and sell a vision and strategy to your team and across the org
- You have a good sense of vision and strategy, and you’re able to translate that strategy into successful execution through experimentation and continuous improvement
- You partner closely with product management, design, marketing, and the support organizations to drive and achieve business outcomes
- You’re motivated by shaping what’s next. You want to define how millions of people experience automation in the AI era and help lead Zapier’s next generation of customer-facing products
- You are a skilled mentor, coach, and engineering leader who holds a high bar for talent. You have a passion and a track record of mentoring engineers and leaders, while also growing your own skills
- You've introduced and broadened engineering practices and enhanced engineering cultures. You hold a high bar for talent and increase talent density within your organization through effective hiring, growing and upskilling your team, and performance management
- We're looking for the best fit for each of our roles, regardless of the type of companies in your background, so we encourage you to apply even if your skills and experiences don’t exactly match the job description
What the job involves
- Zapier is on a mission to make automation accessible to everyone, empowering people and businesses to be more efficient and productive
- We’re seeking a Sr. Director of Engineering to lead our AI Orchestration engineering organization
- In this role, you’ll manage multiple engineering squads to innovate and deliver AI solutions. You will lead AI engineering execution across the build organization
- This role will report to Zapier’s CPTO (Chief Product and Technology Officer) and will partner with the Director of Product - AI
- Lead Zapier’s AI Orchestration Zone in partnership with Product and Design. Co-own one of the company’s most strategic initiatives, unifying core AI capabilities, driving technical direction, and shaping how AI is applied across Zapier’s products to create differentiated customer experiences
- Prototype and push the boundaries of applied AI. Experiment with new models, tools, and approaches to deliver impactful, production-ready AI features that extend Zapier’s automation capabilities
- Build and mentor a world-class engineering organization. Attract, develop, and retain exceptional talent while fostering a culture of technical excellence, curiosity, and velocity
- Drive a culture of innovation and technical rigor. Balance exploration with execution by turning emerging AI capabilities into scalable, reliable features that create measurable customer impact
- Foster cross-functional alignment. Collaborate with Product, Design, and Go-to-Market partners to define the AI roadmap, ensure execution against company strategy, and translate bold ideas into tangible outcomes
- Champion engineering excellence. Guide architectural decisions, evolve Zapier’s AI infrastructure, and uphold best practices in reliability, scalability, and agile development
- Shape Zapier’s next chapter. Play a key role in defining what AI-powered automation looks like for millions of customers and how Zapier evolves into an intelligent orchestration platform
Application process
- Deadline to Apply: January 30, 2026 at 5:00 AM UTC
- All we ask is that you answer a few in-depth questions in our application that would typically be asked at the start of an interview process
- This helps speed things up by letting us get to know you and your skillset a bit better right out of the gate
- Please be sure to answer each question; the resume and CV fields are optional
- Education is not a requirement for our roles; however, if you receive an offer, you will need to include your most recent educational experience as part of our background check process
- After you apply, you are going to hear back from us—even if we don’t see an immediate fit with our team
- In fact, throughout the process, we strive to never go more than seven days without letting you know the status of your application
- We know we’ll make mistakes from time to time, so if you ever have questions about where you stand or about the process, just ask your recruiter!
- The anticipated application window is 30 days from the date job is posted, unless the number of applicants requires it to close sooner or later, or if the position is filled
Our take
Even before remote working became the "in thing", freelancers, small business owners, and large organisations have found themselves needing more and more software platforms to serve their operations needs. As people used more software services, Zapier founders saw the need to connect the actions between these softwares and save everyone some time.
Zapier is the largest integration and automation tool for businesses. Since being founded, Zapier has grown its suite of automation offerings across almost every mainstream software service. The company is one of the most successful to come out of Y Combinator, and has also been one of the pioneers of remote working.
Zapier has so far, been able to capitalise heavily on its advantage as first entrants and has had very little actual competition. Software services aren't going anywhere anytime soon and organisations are only going to need more of them. This puts Zapier in a strong place growth-wise but also opens up room for bolder companies to get in on the action. Companies like Airtable and Integromat are already preying on more niche segments of Zapier's market share.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
38% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Oct 2012
$1.3m
SEED
Sep 2012
$0.2m
SEED
Total funding: $1.5m
Company benefits
- Work from anywhere
- Bonus program
- Unlimited vacation policy
- Great healthcare + dental + vision coverage*
- Retirement plan with company match*
- Stock options for every Zapien**
- 2 annual company retreats to awesome places
- 14 weeks paid leave for new parents
- Home office setup stipend
- Professional development allowance
Additional info
- As a fully remote company with 800+ team members across 40+ states, 38 countries, and 18+ timezones, we’ve adopted a culture of asynchronous work. This work style allows teams to collaborate effectively across locations, time zones, skills, and each individual’s energy levels, and empowers employees to work in a setting that fits their needs. In practice, we live on Slack, with most conversations in public channels. It mimics the open-office feel and allows everyone to search the chat logs if they need to find something that happened when they weren’t around
Leadership
Wade Foster
(CEO & Co-Founder)Prior to co-founding Zapier, wasEmail Marketing Manager with Veterans United Home Loans, and Customer Development Lead at The Idea Works.
Bryan Helmig
(CTO & Co-Founder)Was previously Product Dev/Manager at Veterans United Home Loans.
Mike Knoop
(Co-Founder)Was CPO and Head of Labs at Zapier before becoming President. Previously was a Graduate Research at the University of Missouri.
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